Tag Archive: Supernatural

For “truth is stranger than fiction” it’s difficult not to stumble over the story of Sarah Winchester. Mysteries of the Museum, America’s Castles, and every series that has ever taken viewers on an excursion to America’s supposedly haunted houses has covered the story. Heir to the Winchester rifle fortune, Sarah Winchester became one of the world’s wealthiest women of the 19th century. Her husband died in 1881 and she then proceeded to spend her fortune on a sprawling mansion over the next 38 years, a mansion that was never finished. And why? Because Sarah Winchester thought the ghosts of those killed by Winchester rifles were haunting her. She built extra room after room on her mansion to trick them into not finding her. And she had new rooms added to the mansion until she died. And this story is all true.

Next month the great Helen Mirren (RED, Hitchcock, The Queen) steps into the shoes of Sarah Winchester in the new drama horror film, Winchester. One of genredom’s pervasive actors, Jason Clarke (Terminator: Genesys, Farscape, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, Everest) plays a doctor looking into Winchester’s outlandish claims for the Winchester business.

The mansion still exists and is now a tourist attraction called the Winchester Mystery House in San Jose, California. Check out the website here. For fans of Supernatural–show creator Eric Kripke gave Sam and Dean their last name because of Kripke’s interest in the Mystery House.

The film adaptation appears to take the ghost story into the realm of Guillermo del Toro’s ghost story Crimson Peak. Check out previews for the new movie, Winchester, after the cut:

Tomorrow two classic franchises will take the form of comic book series as Dynamite Entertainment releases the first issues of Charmed and Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie.

Inspired by recent noir comic book series like Ed Brubaker’s Fatale and Darwyn Cooke’s Parker series, Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie writer Anthony Del Col (Assassin’s Creed, Kill Shakespeare) and artist Werther Dell’Edera (Detective Comics, House of Mystery) are bringing the classic teen detectives into the 21st century. Yet it has a very Archie Comics vibe. In the new series, Frank and Joe Hardy are accused of murdering their father, a detective, and they enlist Nancy Drew to help prove their innocence–and find the real murderer. The series promises a “twisting, hard-boiled tale, complete with double-crosses, deceit and dames,” keeping with the noir crime setting. Look for cover variants Nancy Drew and The Hardy Boys: The Big Lie from Faye Dalton, Emma Vieceli, and Robert Hack.

Before the series Supernatural would take over the genre spot for the next decade, the three Halliwell sisters, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) provided a similar weekly fix of the paranormal, the mythic, the magical, and the Wiccan. Following the death of Prue in the finale of Season 3, their long-lost half sister Paige Matthews (Rose McGowan) assumed Prue’s role within the “Power of Three,” and a new comic book series will continue the story of these three sisters. The second longest running hour-long television series featuring all female leads, Charmed aired 178 episodes over eight seasons. The next episodes will take the form of a Charmed monthly comic featuring writer Erica Schultz (Swords of Sorrow) and artist Maria Sanapo (Grimm, DC Comics Bombshells). Artist Joe Corroney (Star Wars, Star Trek) will provide the cover art to Issue #1, and Sanapo will draw the monthly covers and interior artwork.

Check out previews of Issue #1 of both new series, including variant covers, after the break, courtesy of Dynamite Entertainment:

It has been nearly a year since we first reported here at borg.com on images from Toy Fair 2016 of Funko’s prototype Playmobil figures, a result of a new partnership of the toy companies that allows Funko to produce licensed Playmobil figures never before released. The figures will not be the traditional size that is playable with the thousands of Playmobil playsets released over the past four decades, but a larger, double-sized six-inch tall figure.

Although initial projections indicated these figures would be released last summer, finally online toy dealer Entertainment Earth is now taking pre-orders for the first series of these figures, which include characters from Back to the Future, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. You can also order a figure of Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, available exclusively through Entertainment Earth.

All have great sculpts and sport appropriate hats, scarves, sonic screwdrivers, proton packs, gauntlets, and other accessories. Click on any of the images (above and after the cut) to learn more and pre-order your favorites from Entertainment Earth:

During the same years that Buffy the Vampire Slayer was bringing a unique take on the teen horror genre, from 1998 through 2006 the “Charmed Ones” and the “Power of Three” connected TV viewers to a different realm of stories of the supernatural in the WB’s series Charmed. Before the series Supernatural would take over the genre spot for the next decade, the three Halliwell sisters, Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs) and Phoebe (Alyssa Milano) provided a similar weekly fix of the paranormal, the mythic, the magical, and the Wiccan. Following the death of Prue in the finale of Season 3, their long-lost half sister Paige Matthews (Rose McGowan) assumed Prue’s role within the “Power of Three” and a new comic book series will continue the story of these three sisters from the show.

The second longest running hour-long television series featuring all female leads, Charmed aired 178 episodes over eight seasons. The next episodes will take the form of a Charmed, monthly comic featuring writer Erica Schultz (Swords of Sorrow: Masquerade & Kato, Swords of Sorrow: Black Sparrow & Lady Zorro, Revenge) and artist Maria Sanapo (Grimm, DC Comics Bombshells). Zenescope previously published a Season 9 and Season 10 comic book series and 43 tie-in novels further expanded the series into 2008. In 2015 a reboot novel series beginning with the Paul Ruditis book The War on Witches was set between the two comic book seasons.

Publisher Dynamite Comics describes the first story of the new series: A dark force has set its sights on the art world of San Francisco and the only ones who can stop it are Phoebe, Paige, and Piper! Continue reading →

Time travel. It’s a fun sub-genre of science fiction when it’s done right. NBC and the CW have dueling sci-fi series entering the Primetime line-up beginning this month. On Mondays, NBC airs Timeless, a story about a historian, a computer expert and a soldier acting as timecops as they try to correct changes in history via a time machine in pursuit of another–stolen–time machine. On Wednesdays the CW airs Frequency, based on the 2000 sci-fi sleeper and cult movie starring Dennis Quaid. Both are from the creative minds of Supernatural showrunners, and both series began this week with powerful openers. We think both are worth adding to your weekly watch list. The challenge will be maintaining their respective concepts for a full season.

Timeless hails from Supernatural creator Eric Kripke and The Shield creator Shawn Ryan. Abigail Spencer leads the cast as a historian much like you’d find in a Connie Willis novel, pulled into a secret time travel project. Someone (Goran Visnjic) kidnapped a scientist played by genre favorite Matt Frewer, and Homeland Security, including a smartly cast agent played by Sakina Jaffrey (Sleepy Hollow, Mr. Robot), enlists Spencer’s character, an insider IT guy (Malcolm Barrett) and soldier/protector (Matt Lanter) to find them–in the past. Compared to Star Trek and Doctor Who this show is Time Travel Lite–no complex knowledge or thought required. The time travel prime directive seems to be that the timecops cannot travel into a time in which they previously existed. So no do-overs.

You can’t beat a nicely done re-creation of the Hindenburg disaster. Even better, a re-imagining revealing the disaster never occurred. Timeless didn’t waste any time, starting off with a single episode story focused on a historic event and it appears that will be the draw of each episode. We saw elements of TimeCop, Timeline, Continuum, Quantum Leap, Doctor Who, Terminator, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow in the first episode alone. It works and it’s fun. There’s something adventuresome about Timeless in a Young Indiana Jones vein. Timeless did miss one opportunity here: Why not begin with the Hindenburg crashing on a false historic date and then land on the real date of the disaster for the ending? That would have been a heck of a trick, but it shows much more can be threaded into this series. We know from Star Trek and Doctor Who that time travel is twisty and full of possibilities. Timeless needs to embrace what its savvy audience already knows–and keep the focus on the fun.

Bummed that you’re not getting your convention fix this weekend because you’re not in San Diego? Never fear, you can watch the weekend’s panels happening offsite in San Diego at the sixth annual Nerd HQ event online now.

The most fun of all the great new lines of toys coming out of this past weekend’s annual Toy Fair toy show came as a surprise. We were expecting several new Funko ReAction figure toy lines like we saw last year, but that didn’t happen. Instead Funko revealed a great new partnership–a team-up with classic children’s toy figure company Playmobil. Playmobil brings to the table the classic style of its figures and Funko brings the famous brand licenses they are now known for in their Pop! bobbleheads and ReAction lines.

Just check out these properties: Back to the Future… Sherlock… Doctor Who… Supernatural… Willy Wonka… Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles… Ghostbusters… Fallout… and The Walking Dead… all to be available in Playmobil figures! Not only is this a new line of figures, the figures will be released in a new six-inch format, retailing at $14.99.

Check out these images of actual figures revealed at Toy Fair, and spec sheets for other figures coming soon to a toy store near you:

Who would have thought Supernatural could make it this far? Maybe its 2.5 million viewers. The adventures of Kansas “boys” Sam and Dean Winchester and their black 1967 Chevy Impala, 327, 4-barrel, V-8 engine, automatic, 4-door hardtop remains compelling after all these years. The Vancouver, BC-based production can only really be compared to The X-Files, also full of watchable single, monster-of-the-week, episodes (that you can just pop in to watch even if you’re not watching every episode of the series) as well as ongoing story arcs. But The X-Files only made it nine seasons–so far.

Jared Padalecki and Jensen Ackles begin their next journey in only a few weeks. And fan favorite Mark Sheppard, who has been on some 50 episodes as Crowley, is back as well. And you can always bet on some good guest stars to show up each season.

Check out the Winchester brothers and Crowley in this preview for Season 11’s premier episode, “The Darkness”–

Bummed that you’re not getting your convention fix this weekend because you’re not in San Diego? Never fear, you can watch the weekend’s panels happening across the street from San Diego Comic-Con at the Nerd HQ event online now. Just pull-up your GoogleTV or YouTube app and check out the links below.

Streaming runs live through Sunday, but we expect these to be available on YouTube as with prior years. Here is the line-up for each day:

Of all the beauty to be found in British Columbia, from the unreal blue waters along Highway 99, to the European feel of Victoria on San Juan Island, to the gondola ride to the top of Whistler, to the Emerald City of Vancouver, you will hardly find anything as mesmerizing as the mountain that resides next to the lovely town of Squamish called Stawamus Chief.

At the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park, you can enjoy a great picnic with your family and find yourself transfixed at the incredibly polished striations down the mountain’s face, the result of millions of years of erosion. Driving the Sea to Sky highway between Vancouver and Whistler you will find your eyes drawn to this monstrous entity as you twist along the highway–almost like Mt. Rainier towering over Seattle as you inch closer–until you find yourself in its shadow. Under the code name “Euclid” you could find the crew of the next Star Trek adventure, Star Trek Beyond, filming their next adventure there this past week.

Just like Vancouver is one of the most popular shooting locations in North America, it’s no wonder the topography draws studios back to this spot time and time again. While you’re waiting for Star Trek Beyond, try to spot the mighty Chief in any number of Canadian productions as you watch TV and movies every day. Once you’ve visited Squamish a few times, you’ll experience another level of enjoyment spotting the town and its landmarks in dozens of movies and TV series.

Here are some shows to check out:

The star-studded and nicely creepy A&E series The Returned is filmed in and around Squamish, and every episode features prominent buildings and easily recognizable natural landmarks. Catch The Returned season one OnDemand.